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The beautifully worthless

A modern epic poem about a runaway waitress and her Dalmatian, Rorschach, who leave Brooklyn to find hope in a town named Camus, Idaho. Along the way they witness and partake in an American landscape filled with poverty, warm six-packs, roulette wheels, murder sites, and their own family.

Abstract:

A tender, tragic, absurd and highly original voice, Liebegott's award-winning epic road poem has been compared to Kerouac and Wojnarowicz.Read more...

Reviews

Editorial reviews

Publisher Synopsis

"The Beautifully Worthless is a genre-smudging, American Mythos-screwing hell of a book. Never falling into the twee or succumbing to the snarky, Liebegott's wit, astuteness and assured poetics come together to create this marvel of empathy & mercy, decency & heart; it affirms the possibility that hope is tenable and that living is worth the life itself. This is an atlas for every queerly vagabond soul, a pillow book for the hopelessly heartweary."--Justin Chin "Ali Liebegott's The Beautifully Worthless is a mixed-genre tour de force, a classic yet subverted road story, an original and fierce claim on this country, and the generator of an unusual, moving canon. It's saturated with Liebegott's signature gifts: a peerless sense of humor and a capacity to bear witness to and articulate the darkest corners of fear and despair. I stand in awe of Liebegott's talent and heart. She is one of the best we've got."--Maggie Nelson "Her witty, compassionate voice haunts me like no other."--Joan Larkin "Most comparisons to Jack Kerouac induce eye-rolls, but you figure that the Beatific City Lights wouldn't print such a thing unless they meant it. The Beautifully Worthless is a subverted road story about a runaway waitress who leaves her lover and hits the road with her dog. She maps her travels in letters to the girl she left behind and poetry about love and heartache."--SF Weekly "[Liebegott] writes with grace and empathy and with a whole 'lotta' heart."--Amos LassenRead more...